Breaching the wall

The 3 stairs leading down in the basement. The stairs are rounded and made from blue hardstone.

My dad having the honours. Chipping away the joints (?) around the bricks

the first brick is removed however as we expected there was another layer behind it. the wall is very sturdy.

2nd layer is removed. we could peek whats behind. Very exhilarating moment :)

putting my cellphone through and making sure not to drop it to get a better view.

another one. the bricks that fell behind the wall were not falling into water but on firm ground which was already good.

kinda blurry :/ bigger hole now, there is a room/corridor to be seen. About 6-7 meters deep.

Other side at the back of the wall inside the corridor. At the right hand side you can see what is now determined as a coal chute. edit : the blackness on the walls is leftover residue from the coals. You can also see the wall is totally covered where they poured the coals in (on the right side).

The only object in the coal chute room. A can. Totally rusted everywhere so nothing to distinguish what it could have been. Cans were trademarked back in 1811. At around 1840-1850 they were commercialized which could mean a worker or someone left the can when they sealed up the wall during the time they built the manor in 1851.

At the other side of the coal chute there is a larger vaulted room - :o effect. The room is accessible only through a wide rectangular opening in the wall. The bottom of the opening came up to my hips and i'm 194cm/6'4(freedom). Very nice masonry. Vaulted basically everywhere, there is no horizontal floor. This could be a sort of water reserve / water pit from the time of the brewery in the 17th century. You can see tools (?) laying around and a square hole in the middle with water in it. the intention is to go inside soon and also see if we can pump out the water and see whats inside or even.. go inside.

edit : someone in the comments thinks this might have been the room where they kept the lager. Good theory! however i dont get the connection with the coals chute/room just adjacent to it.

edit : A couple of suggestions point in the direction of an ice cellar with the square hole in the ground functioning as a drain for the water. Then again the coal chute and coal corridor doesnt make much sense. However perhaps they used the chute for chucking ice down and then shovel it into this secondary room where the opening also declines (to let stuff slide over). The blackness in the corridor with the coal chute means perhaps that the room was used as a coal chute in a second phase of usage when the ice cellar was no longer in use.

ORIGINAL POST : https://imgur.com/a/minaK